Quote Originally Posted by Vendalwind View Post
Optimally we want a scenario where 1 selfish and 3 utiliy dps yield the best results by a mild margin over 2 and 2
So... You basically want StB balance back? Where every raid was Bard + Dragoon + Ninja + [Selfish DPS] (Or often, SMN because they did pDPS equivalent to that of selfish DPS but also had utility and rDPS boosts too... Like they still do!)

The "Ideal" scenario is where any 4 jobs can be used together and be close enough to not matter in terms of DPS.

This means, 4 selfish DPS = 3 selfish DPS + 1 support = 2 selfish DPS + 2 support = 1 selfish DPS + 3 support = 4 support.

Why? Since that means that people can play the job that they like the most without having to adjust based on what other people in their raid are playing/want to play.

It however, can be tricky to balance around since the more support DPS that are in a party, the bigger factor that Tank + Healer DPS makes, which can be unhealthy for the overall game balance (See: Healers complaining about being "Green DPS" instead of Healers)

Furthermore, there's something to be said about smaller groups too. Dungeons exist and form a significant part of the game (Due to MSQ as well as Tomestone/Materia grinding). The more you lower support jobs pDPS in favour of making it up with rDPS in 8 man parties, the worse they perform in 4 man content (As well as in PuG content where you find duplicate jobs whose rDPS boosts won't stack)

Such additional aspects to job balancing are why ShB has skewed more towards removing much of the rDPS boosts that existed in the game (Though, many still exist and with some still being on "Selfish DPS" jobs like SMN, DRG, MNK and RDM not just the typical "Support" jobs like BRD, DNC, NIN... Though, this largely depends on your definition of "Support" vs "Selfish" and thus whether you think that only BLM, MCH and SAM are "Selfish" DPS due to their complete lack of utility/rDPS boosts)